Facilities such as restaurants, food packaging and pharmaceutical factories which process items where contamination from human contact is to be avoided have locations where hand washing is to be publically observable for monitoring and oversight. There is also a need at medical facilities and hospitals to assure that hygienic hand washing practices are followed. In the following discussions the locations will be referred to as wash stations. The actual practice of washing of hands in the following discussions will be referred to as a hand washing event. There are standards as to when and in what situations and in what manner the hands are to be washed. For example in the restaurant industry hands are to be washed after contact with raw food for at least 15 seconds of vigorous scrubbing. Government surveys have found up to 50% noncompliance with proper hand washing guidelines by restaurant employees. This has led to several epidemics, such as the 1992 Jack-in-the-Box outbreak where more than 500 people developed E. coli infections and four children died. This had serious effects on Jack-in-the-Box's business nationally and exposed them to serious lawsuits. Most establishments have standards for the employee hand washing and provide training and signs promoting good practices, but studies show this is ineffective and provides no documentation of compliance. The proposed system addresses the industry need for a system to facilitate management overview of hygienic practices, and allow documented proof that good practices are being followed.
Many food service establishments rely on employee sign-up sheets, third-party visiting audits or management observations to insure hand washing compliance, all of which suffer from infrequent observations and unverified reports. Commercial systems to monitor employee hand washing compliance operate on the principle of RFID identification of employees and some interface with the washing station to monitor and document compliance. This is expensive and prone to abuse, e.g. employee swapping of the RFID tags.
As a measure of the importance of this problem a number of patents have been issued on various aspects of the problem. The following addresses some of the prior art and the differences between previous approaches and the current invention.
The application by Johnson (20100155416) monitors hand washing by a with a soap dispenser, which is not a requirement of the present invention.
The application and patent by Lacey (20090087028 and U.S. Pat. No. 8,090,155) involve a detailed evaluation of the hand motion and provides no means of subject identification, unlike the present invention.
In the application of Taneff (20120062382) the system uses RFID(s) (Radio Frequency Identification Unit) communicating with other electronic units through the use of RF waves in order to achieve its main objective, which is not a requirement of the present invention.
Armstrong's patent (U.S. Pat. No. 6,577,240) queues detection of a hand washing alarm depending on the detection of persons passing through areas. The current invention involves no detection of persons passing through an area.
In Wildman's patent (U.S. Pat. No. 7,248,933) the cameras are not used as sensors as in the case of Argus. Independent claims are 1, 44, 68 and 86. Claim 1 has user ID badges and the others have the equivalent of “means respectively coupled to a plurality of objects for transmitting unique transmitter IDs” requiring the user to transmit. Limited to the health care environment.
The patent by Lane et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 7,372,367) requires movement from zone to zone and the pressing of a switch unlike the current invention. There are numerous other patients addressing the movement of people from zone to zone that are not referenced as this is not the purpose of or utilizes the techniques of the current patent.
The patent of Melker, et al (U.S. Pat. No. 7,755,494) and the patent of Smith (U.S. Pat. No. 7,597,122) monitor hand washing by the use of hand washing agents added to the soap or disinfectant, and therefore addresses a different issue than the current invention.
Johnson's patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,970,574 and 7,542,586 and 6,038,331) and that of Plost (U.S. Pat. No. 8,294,584) and the application of Chen; Wen-Hui; et al. (20120140054) require a detailed hand examination unlike the present invention,
The patent of Seyed Momen, et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 8,237,558) addresses hygiene requirements for users moving zone to zone and requires that they carry zone sensors, and therefore is not addressing the same issues in a similar manner as the current invention.
The patent of Mahmoodi, et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 8,299,896) requires a biometric sensor operatively coupled to the computer and a hand hygiene dispenser operatively coupled to the computer, neither of which is required in the current invention.